Towards a Multidimensional Theory of Wisdom

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Gerhard Schönrich
• Subject Area: Theoretical Philosophy
• Term: from 2015 to 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 290376333

The basic concept of this project, which is primarily based in the field of normative epistemology, is the concept of a wise decision, from which further central concepts of wisdom such as personal wisdom or wisdom as a value will be construed. The main benefit of this account consists in providing an independently measurable concept of personal wisdom which is specifically useful for further empirical research. The project is divided into three major fields of work:(1) Under what conditions can a decision characterized as being wise? We are going to develop a definition of wise decisions within a broader framework of a contextualist theory of wisdom attributions. We also develop a distinction between two kinds of wisdom attributions, namely attributive and adverbial attributions.(2) Traditional as well as current theories of wisdom usually address the concept of personal wisdom exclusively. While such competing approaches try to define personal wisdom directly in terms of cognitive and other personal characteristics, we go the opposite way and define a wise person as a person who has the disposition to decide wisely. This approach is reductive insofar as it bases the concept of a wise person on the concept of wise decisions. The key advantage consists in being able to operationalize both aspects independently from each other, which provides a superior base especially for empirically oriented theories of personal wisdom.(3) The third project area aims to explain the epistemic value of wisdom. While the practical value of wisdom is often referred to especially in the field of ethics, the epistemic value of wisdom is highly underexposed in the current epistemological discussion. What is discussed instead are rather the concepts of justification, knowledge or, most recently, understanding. This preemphasis is, according to our view, not sufficiently founded. We argue that one of the goals of science and epistemic practice in general is to make significant contributions to the improvement of our current situation. This is exactly as we define wise decisions. Wisdom is, among other things, epistemically valuable because it is one of the capacities we aim for when doing science; and it can as such not be reduced to other things such as truth, justification, or knowledge.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants